Steve Vogl’s ties to organized crime are so ingrained into his lifestyle he once had to choose between removing several people from his wedding invitation list or returning to a federal penitentiary.

The 53-year-old Montreal businessman was the reason behind the Régie des alcools des courses et des jeux decision on Thursday to turn down a request, from the owners of the Montreal Observation Wheel located in the Old Port, that would have allowed them to serve alcohol in a bistro near the tourist attraction. While the liquor board wasn’t convinced Vogl might be a silent partner in the Observation Wheel, as the Montreal police alleged, it was troubled by how the owners insisted they will keep doing business with him, as a supplier, despite having heard evidence of his ties to organized crime.

Among other things, the liquor board was told Vogl was seen dining with Vito Rizzuto, the now-deceased leader of the Montreal Mafia, in May 2013. A police officer testified that Vogl was seen dining with Rizzuto in a downtown restaurant along with Gregory Woolley, a man currently considered to be one of the most influential organized crime figures in Montreal, and former lawyer Loris Cavaliere. The men had dined together just weeks before Vogl was about to open a boutique on De la Montagne St. that would be the first to carry a popular clothing line from Italy in North America. In 2013, a police source told the Montreal Gazette Rizzuto attended a party held at the boutique to celebrate its opening.

The boutique has since closed, but when it opened the owners of the Italian company told the Montreal Gazette they felt Vogl a “great partner” in their first venture into Canada. They were likely unaware Vogl has a lengthy criminal record and had previously served a 12-year prison term that included a sentence he received for attempting to smuggle 1,000 kilograms of hashish from Lebanon to Canada. The hashish was hidden among a shipment of two containers filled with furniture.

Vogl was convicted in the U.S. on charges related to the large shipment of hashish and was initially sentenced to a seven-year prison term. He began serving the sentence on July 20, 1993, and was transferred to Canada in 1995. According to Parole Board of Canada records, Vogl had previously served a four-year prison term, during the 1980s, for a series of armed robberies he carried out in the West Island. In 1995, a psychologist who evaluated Vogl for the parole board assessed him as “an individual of average intelligence, (but) with superior arithmetic reasoning abilities.”

Vogl was never granted full parole on the seven-year sentence he received in the U.S. Instead, he automatically qualified for a statutory release in 1997, after serving two-thirds of his sentence. But he was quickly returned to a penitentiary in January 1998, after he was caught acting as a middleman between drug dealers and their suppliers during an RCMP investigation. His original seven-year sentence was eventually extended into a 12-year prison term.

According to a parole decision made in 2000, the RCMP and Montreal police initially believed that Vogl was tied to the Cotroni organization, the crime family that ruled the Montreal Mafia for years before the Rizzuto organization took over in the late 1970s.

“However, a protected information report completed in March 2000 following the receipt of a written document from the Montreal Drug Squad (RCMP) reveals that you are not now and have never been a member of Italian organized crime,” the parole board noted in a decision made in July 2000. “(T)he liaison officer for organized crime criminal intelligence revised your status and now concludes that you are an independent trafficker who may sometimes have dealings with various criminal organizations.”

Months later, in January 2001, Vogl was granted full parole on his 12-year sentence. But in April that year he made an unusual request to the parole board. He was about to be married in June 2001 and he asked that one of the conditions attached to his release be altered. He was not allowed to associate with “criminal peers, or any person related to the drug milieu,” except for his future father-in-law. He asked if an exception could be made for his wedding day.

“The list of guests shows that many individuals related to organized crime and drug milieu are invited. The first question is to determine if during the specific event, you could initiate illicit activities. At first sight, the board could believe that you will not be (in a business frame of) mind on that date,” the parole board wrote back in 2001. But it still denied Vogl’s request because it felt lifting the condition, even for a day, was “a risky situation.”

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